There are numerous manufacturing processes wherein it is necessary that an article or a section thereof be immersed in a volatile noxious fluid for the purpose of lubricating, coating or cleaning the article. Ventilation systems are often used in such installations to vent the fumes to the outside atmosphere. This minimizes exposure of an attending operator to the noxious fumes. One industry that is particularly faced with this problem is the dry cleaning industry where machines have been developed to perform the dry cleaning operations within a closed housing. Facilities are provided for these machines to introduce the cleaning fluid only during periods in which the actual cleaning is performed, and such machines are usually provided with interlocks that prevent the opening of a door during operation of the machine. Further, these machines include facilities for draining the cleaning fluid upon completion of the tumbling of the clothes in the fluid.
An example of such a dry cleaning machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,273,256 issued Sept. 20, 1966, to C. E. Behrens, wherein clothes are loaded through an entry door into a rotatable basket. An interlock system is provided so that the door must be closed prior to the admission of cleaning fluid from a storage tank into a bottom section of a tub. The basket is rotated to tumble the clothes in the fluid, during which time fluid is continuously flowed into and out of the bottom of the tub. The withdrawn fluid is soiled and facilities are provided to filter the fluid prior to return to the storage tank. The door interlock not only prevents starting of the machine until the door is closed, but also prevents opening of the door until such time as the cleaning fluid is drained from the tub.
Many recent telecommunication switching modules are constructed to be interconnected by connectors having a socket-like body portion for receiving printed circuit modules and a coordinate array of projecting terminal pins on which other connectors are mounted or wires secured thereto. Electrical integrity of the connections is enhanced by plating the projecting terminals with a thin layer of gold. Obviously, the thinner the layer of gold plate, the less expensive the connector. However, there is a physical limit as to how thin the gold layer may be before the layer will be effectively destroyed by erosion and wear caused by the repetitive assembly and disassembly of connectors on the terminal pins.
It has been found that the wear life of the terminal pins can be substantially extended by applying a thin coating of a lubricant, such as a polyphenyl ether. To insure dispersion of the lubricant coating over the entire area of the terminals, the lubricant is usually dispersed in a volatile solvent, such as 1-1-1 trichlorethane. Other volatile solvents may be used, such as those sold under the trademark Freon. Solvents of these types are volatile and at room termperatures often give off noxious fumes which must be vented from the area of application. Such venting facilities are expensive and occupy considerable areas of worthwhile valuable manufacturing space. There is a need for a facility for applying such a lubricant to large numbers of terminals without subjecting an attending operator to noxious fumes.